As the Smoke Billows
by petrichorandperennials
Summary: He's her home in a time of war. She keeps him going, even as everything crumbles around them. 50 James and Lily drabbles according to the OTP Bootcamp prompts. Not chronological, but all related.
1. i , acrid

**Author's Note: **Doing one of those prompt things. This one is the OTP Bootcamp Challenge. It may take me awhile, who knows. Life is crazy and I'm just now beginning to post stories on here. Haven't done much James x Lily ever before but they just have a lot of potential and I love it. So here's number one!

i. acrid

She can still taste it on her tongue.

_smoke burning white-hot in her eyes, ashes collecting on her eyelashes, unable to move, unable to think_

Her hands shake as she makes herself a cup of tea, and the hot water splashes, scalding her. She curses, quietly, but hates herself for it. After all, what's a little more pain?

_all those dead bodies, snapped wands, showers of sparks, her ears ringing, and the frantic feeling when she lost sight of him in the crowd, lost him in the turmoil_

She had flooed home from the Ministry as soon as the Aurors had finished identifying bodies. She had protested, when they insisted, not unkindly, that she head back and get some sleep. She knew he was safe, now. In another wing of the building, releasing curses and wrapping up bodies. Packaging the bodies of loved ones like gifts, like offerings.

"We'll tell James you're gone," one of them had said, and she'd nodded, robotically.

She swallows the acrid taste in her mouth, and bitterly wishes she could have done more.

She doesn't want to be alone tonight.

And if he hears this though, as if she's said it aloud, she hears a faint pop from the living room of her flat. She doesn't even have time to turn around before his arms are around her, smoothing down her back, smearing the ash into her clothes and he buries his face in her neck, breathing her in.

He smells of smoke and ash and blood, but also of James and she can't begin to explain how safe this makes her feel.

"How did you know I couldn't sleep?"

She asks against his shoulder, and she realizes it's the first words she's spoken since the attack began.

"Because I couldn't either."

He responds, and pulls back from her, a hand reaching up to brush her cheek. His touch is pressing, but not rough. His eyes are tired and fearful, and she finds herself unable to meet them with her own.

_grey and ash and nothingness, falling and screaming and broken bodies. so many broken bodies._

"Lily." he says, tenderly, brushing a strand of hair from her face, and she finally locks her eyes on to his, a promise, and a plea all at once.

"Stay tonight," she insists, and so he does.


	2. ii, agitated

ii. agitated

It's been a week since Lily spent a night's detention with James Potter. A week since they had been forced to scrub the filthy, reeking crevices of Filch's supply closet together. It has, therefore, been a week since Lily Evans realized that being trapped in a small closet with James wasn't quite as bad as she expected it to be.

* * *

She had shed her robes hours ago, seeing as they limited her movement and she couldn't quite scrub floors with a yard of fabric bunching around her knees. She was, at the point in which James stopped talking, wearing her red and yellow long-sleeved t-shirt rolled up past her elbows and jeans which were now soaked through from her ankles up. He'd been talking the entire time they'd been in there. She wasn't sure what about, though, because she had been making a point not to listen. She had listened at first, of course, as he prattled on about Quidditch. But when he had turned the subject to which girls in each year Sirius had snogged, and which ones he thought were slags, she had tuned him out. Thus far, she had recited all of the ingredients to Amortentia, listed every type of dangerous creature that was known to live in the Dark Forest, and recalled the events of the Giant Wars of the 15th century in chronological order. She had just reached the part where Hagart the Horrible murdered 6,000 of his men as a peace offering to the giants of the South Andes when she noticed a blaring silence. She looked at her companion curiously, but he was distracted, standing on a rickety chair and scorching spider webs from the corners of the small room with his wand.

Lily expected to feel relieved at the silence, but instead found herself feeling incredibly bothered. Inexplicably, she felt she needed to make some sort of conversation with James Potter. This alone was enough to make her question if scrubbing floors and walls for this long had caused her mind to collapse in on itself.

"Erm..." she muttered, at his back, and he reeled around to face her, his eyes narrowed.

_"Yes?" _he asked, quite harshly, and she recoiled slightly.

"I was just wondering if you were going home for the holidays." she muttered, crossing her arms.

"Are you going to _listen_ to my answer, Evans?" he snapped, aggravated.

"Sorry," Lily muttered, looking down at her trainers awkwardly. When she looked back up his back was to her, and he had begun to dust off some of the browning jars that seemed to hold what looked like toenail clippings. She shuddered, trying to ignore this.

"I didn't really want to hear about Sirius's _conquests_, Potter," she admitted, shuddering again for an entirely different reason. She heard him scoff, but he kept his back to her.

"That wasn't all I talked about. I finished with that bit ages ago." She sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said, but he ignored her. Biting her lip at his back, she tried again. "I was being rude. And I'm really very sorry." And she was. Lily didn't like to be rude. Well, often. She was often rude to James Potter, but James Potter was a prat. But as far as she knew, he had been just talking, and not being a prat. And so her rudeness had been unmerited.

A moment passed, and she'd almost given up and begun working again when-

"No, I'm not going home for Christmas."

Lily turned to look at him, but his back was still to her.

"Why not?" she inquired, and he sighed, visibly, his shoulders rising and falling with the intake and outtake of breath. He turned and looked at her, as if wondering what had gotten into her, and why she was asking him anything at all.

"My mum doesn't want me there, I guess." he said, and ran a hand through his hair, awkwardly. Lily crooked her head, confused.

"Well I doubt that. It's Christmas." she said, and he laughed humorlessly.

"You would say that, wouldn't you? Isn't your mom a school teacher? I bet she misses you every day of the year. I bet she sends you letters every day, reminding you to brush your hair. I bet she seals them all with a kiss."

He was mocking her, she realized, and she was slightly taken aback, glancing away.

"Actually, no," she assured him, feeling very strange, "My mum is nice and all, but she gets along better with my sister, and my sister hates me, so..." she trailed off, feeling suddenly very depressed.

"Your sister hates you?" James asked, and she looked up at him. His eyes were softer, but still guarded.

"Yes, I suppose so." she answered with a sigh.

"Why?" he asked, putting his wand in his pocket and taking a seat on the moldy chair he'd been standing on a few minutes before.

"Because I'm a witch," Lily replied, pocketing her own wand and leaning tiredly against the wall beside her, "She thinks I'm a freak."

"Well you're not." he insisted, and she smiled, despite herself.

"You would say that."

He smirked at her, and strangely, she felt flutters erupt in her stomach. She was about to wonder about it, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared, and she simply frowned her herself. She pressed on. "So are you rowing with your mum?"

"Not anymore," he sighed. "It's stale now, but I still don't want to see her."

"What did she do exactly?" Lily asked, now leaning down to dust off another one of the chairs in the closet, pulling it under her and plopping down, leaning her elbows on her knees.

He was still looking at her as if he wasn't sure why she was even bothering, but he continued nonetheless.

"My dad wanted to join a secret order of witches and wizards that are preparing to fight Lord Voldemort. She wouldn't let him. Said that if he did, she would leave him and take me with her. It's not like she even has that authority. I'm sixteen. I can decide for myself who I want to live with."

She thought for a moment, watching him curiously.

"I'm sure she's just trying to protect you," she pondered. "She doesn't want you to have to lose your father, and she doesn't want to see you go off and fight like him."

"But I want to fight!" he groaned, running his hand through his hair again. "Don't you see? If we all just _play it safe_, we will all be in even more danger. We can't just let this _happen_."

"I know, James," she insisted, leaning back in her chair, "I want to fight too, I'm just playing Devil's advocate."

She waited for a retort, but he was just staring at her curiously.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"You called me James. You never call me James."

She had indeed, and she found herself, infuriatingly, beginning to blush.

"Oh, well, I guess we're being civil, so I figured it wouldn't hurt." she stated, incredibly angry with herself for having slipped up, and even more so for the heat she felt spreading against her face.

_Why am I blushing?_ she thought exasperatedly, _He's going to notice and-_

"You're _blushing_, Evans!" James chortled, leaning closer to her in the small space to get a better look. "It's making your freckles disappear."

When she looked up at him to glare, she found that their faces were very close in the small closet, and she swallowed the strange feeling that had nestled itself in her throat. She looked pointedly away, trying to play off her transgression with ease.

"I'm not blushing, it's just getting warm in this damn, filthy room." she snapped, and stood up.

James had just opened his mouth to respond - she knew, because she had heard the smack of his lips - when Flich yanked the door open, startling both of the sixth years enough that they whipped their wands out.

"Out! Out you nasty runts!" he snarled, waving his hands. "Your punishment is over, for now. And put those wands away!"

The two ran back to the common room, laughing.

* * *

When James saunters up to Lily in the common room a week later, with Sirius flanking him, sniggering, and asks her if she'd kindly get a drink with him at the Hog's Head, she declines with a glare.

What makes her so agitated, however, is that for some reason she had almost said "yes".

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yikes. It's been a busy week. Summer classes, work, my kitten getting spayed, sigh. I wanted to write more, I really did, but this is what I have for now. I will try to get more written soon. I'm enjoying these prompts. Thanks to the lovely people who reviewed. You guys get infinite gold stars and my everlasting affection. -{- And a rose.


	3. iii, breathless

iii, breathless

He's eleven, and only _really_ been doing magic for a few years. He finds, however, that charms come pretty easily to him. Today they are learning a levitation spell, one that he's known since about a year ago when his mum taught it to him in hopes that it would encourage him to clean his room more often.

As it is, the classroom is full of first years practicing the charm with feathers. Their Professor, a slightly beady-eyed man by the name of Fessier, is standing at the front of the room, gesturing wildly with his hands and repeating the incantation again and again, _wingardium leviosa, wingardium leviosa, wingardium leviosa_.

James has already done it, his wand pointed lazily at his floating feather, but the majority of the students around him seem to be having quite a bit more trouble. The Ravenclaw to the left of him is muttering curses under his breath and stabbing the feather with his wand, while Sirius, to his right, is twirling the feather between his fingers, having already given up.

Professor Fessier is becoming exasperated, shouting, "_Swish and flick_!" and gesturing even more animatedly, when James is hit hard in the stomach by a stack of books and falls flat on the floor, the wind knocked out of him completely. When he clears his head and sits, up, finally regaining his breath, it is to find a completely mortified red-headed girl standing across the room from him, her eyes wide and her wand raised.

"I'm so sorry!" she squeaks, apparently still unable to move. James smooths his robes and stands up, still a little dizzy. He finally gets a good look at the girl, who he vaguely remembers to be called Evans, and laughs.

"Nice one," he teases, but with a distinct amount of admiration. "You must really have the hang of it."

The breath she'd been holding releases from her lungs as she relaxes. And then she smiles, and although it's timid, it completely transforms her face. All at once he can see the smattering of freckles that cover the bridge of her nose, and the soft pink of her cheeks from her blush of embarrassment. Her teeth are straight and white and her eyes are almond shaped, and the deepest most lovely green he's ever seen.

"I'm pretty sure I've mastered it." she jokes back at him, and, Merlin, her voice is nice. At least that's what he decides as she turns to sit down.

He's still standing there, a little dazed, as she begins to giggle with her friends at a table across the room. Suddenly, James realizes that he's breathless again.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Short and sweet. At least it's something!


	4. iv, battered

**A/N: **So I am mega-invested in my other, new story, Between the Pages, which I pretty much have written in my head. All it needs is details and fluff and well, you'll see. But I am also really loving this bootcamp challenge and it's sort of what I write when I get sudden inspiration. So here's tonight's installment. Enjoy 3

* * *

iv. battered

It's a time of tension, and when he hears a loud, splintering crash from downstairs, where Lily had just disappeared minutes ago, his wand is in his hand in milliseconds, and he's crouched, descending the steps quickly but quietly.

"Lily?" he whispers, his heart hammering painfully against his ribcage.

_She has to be alright, she's going to be okay, her and the baby, they're alive, they're okay._

When he enters the kitchen he sees her, reduced to pile on the floor, soft sobs wracking her body, surrounded by shards of broken glass.

"Lily!" he chokes, crouching down beside her, laying soft hands on her limbs and head, turning them and checking for injuries, an instinct developed during war. "Tell me you're alright, are you okay?"

She's nodding now, through her tears, and trying to get up, but he calms her, telling her to stay where she is. He pulls her face, her rosy, splotched cheeks between his palms and searches her for answers.

"What happened, love?"

She just shakes her head, eyes closed, vaguely and weakly gesturing to what he now sees are broken goblets littering the floor.

"I just...I knocked them o-over by accident." she whimpers, her eyes finally opening enough to blearily meet his.

"It's okay," he breathes, pulling her to his chest. "It's okay."

"No it's _not_, James," she retorts, pushing him away from her, albeit feebly. "It's never going to be okay again."

She's glaring at him through her tears. He's helpless, but he wants to help her so fucking badly.

"Lils-" he begins.

"No. Don't start with the optimism and the fucking lies." He's not really surprised by this reaction, and knows he just needs to let her have her say. "Mary's dead. Lupin is stuck underground fighting werewolves for weeks at a time. Marlene can't even leave her house. Sirius-" she chokes, a new round of sobs hitting her chest.

"Sirius is fine, Lily," he pleads, touching her hair, her face, her shoulder, anything to comfort her, to stop her beautiful tears, "No, really, he is, he's out there fighting like he wants to be and-"

"And _what, _Prongs?" she yells, fisting her hands in his shirt and directing her red-rimmed glare at him, "When he's dead will he be having so much fun fighting? When we're dead and gone will he still want to _fight_?"

"We're not gonna die, Lils," James states, trying to convince her of this while convincing himself simultaneously. "We're going to stay safe, lay low. You're going to have this baby and we're going to love him and keep him safe no matter what. And it will all be alright, okay?" She's shaking her head and he runs his hands along her temples, through her rust-colored hair, pulling her lips to his so she can't disagree for once. Her lips are rose petals against his and she tastes salty as her anger dies in her mouth, replaced by crippling hurt. He can feel it, and he tries to breathe it in, take it from her. When he pulls away her eyes are wet again, but she's breathing normally and her eyes are wide and emerald green.

"We're going to get through this." he says again, to her, to himself, to the baby growing in her stomach, or maybe to God. He's not really sure.

She nods, weakly, seemingly resigned to whatever may come.

"I love you," she breathes, like a prayer.

"I know," he sighs into her skin as he presses his lips to her shoulder. "Now let's go to bed."

She follows him up the stairs, her hands resting on her stomach, ignoring as shards of glass slice crescent moons into the soles of her feet.


	5. v, calm

**A/N:** Short, silly, but I am super absorbed in my other story. More to come, soon.

* * *

v. calm

She's so very tired from her exams, her shoes kicked off and her socks crumpled inside of them. She's dipping her feet in the lake, and it's as glorious as can be. She can feel the sunlight on the backs of her eyelids and sinking into the skin of her cheeks. The lake is placid, flat and unmoving, and oh so cool on her legs. It's perfect, really, a great way to spend a Saturday. And she should have known that he would ruin it.

"Evans!" she hears him yell, and tries so, so hard to ignore him, pointedly keeping her eyes closed and her face turned upwards.

"Hey Evans!" James calls again, but she still refuses to turn around, and so when he gets there, out of breath, her eyes are still shut. He taps her obnoxiously on her shoulder, still gasping for breath, and she opens her eyes enough to glare at him.

"What do you want, Potter?" she asks, reluctantly standing up to face him, pulling her robes on over her jeans and t-shirt as she does so. She can feel her legs protesting the sudden movement and sighs, placing her hands on her hips to emphasize her displeasure with the scruffy-haired boy now smiling widely at her.

"I was just wondering if you'd like to take a little swim with me," he says, straightening his glasses. She looks at him with incredulity.

"In the lake? With the giant squid?"

He laughs, and she tries to glare more menacingly. It only makes him smile wider.

"Yes, actually. He's quite fun. Sometimes if you're still enough, he will swim up and tickle your feet with his tentacles."

She can tell he's jerking her around, and huffs, leaning down to pick up her shoes and socks, intending to head back to the castle.

"Thanks for ruining my only time to relax today," she scolds, tucking her shoes under her arm and starting to walk away. He grabs onto the sleeve of her robes, though, so she finds herself falling backwards towards him and drops her shoes onto the grass in the process. He steadies her, grinning, and she thinks she might just kill him.

"C'mon, Evans, don't you want to have a little fun?"

"No." She pulls away from him, crossing her arms. "I want to get my things, go up to my dormitory, close the door, and avoid seeing you anymore today."

He tuts, shaking his head and fixing his face in a mock-serious expression.

"Not very nice, ginger," he chides, and she feels her face getting hot with anger. "I just wanted to suggest a nice, cooling dip. I'm sorry I offended you, I'll just be going."

But as he's actually turning to leave, Lily hears a loud noise, growing louder, and turns fast enough to see Sirius sprinting towards them, his arms out and bellowing. Before she knows it he's pushed both her and James off the dock and into the water, and she's flailing in her robes, brushing water out of her eyes, and she's cold and completely livid.

"Sirius Black you complete _prat_." she yells, splashing at him angrily once she gets her footing on the lake floor and pulls her heavy robes off. He's on the shore, doubled over laughing. James is in the water beside her, trying to shake the water off of his glasses and laughing just as hard as his friend. Lily growls angrily. "You are both _impossible_!" she exclaims, and stomping out of the water, she wrings out her robes over Sirius's head, drenching him, and then storms back up towards the castle, dripping the whole way.

Later, when she makes it to the dormitories, her friends ask why she's sopping wet, and she launches into a twenty minute, anger-driven sermon about what a complete arse-head James Potter is.


	6. vi, carcass

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, they belong to Jo, who I owe my life to, incidentally.

* * *

vi. carcass

Death is not something she can ever get used to. The idea of someone once full of life and brilliance being reduced to an empty shell continues to haunt her day after day, as more of her friends and classmates disappear or are found dead. She sees some of them die.

Death Eaters find them one night, as they are gathered for an Order meeting. They've finished going over tactics, and Lily is chatting with Remus, who hasn't been at a meeting in month due to his special position as a spy in the werewolf underground. She's just getting around to telling him about their recent and careful relocation of her parents to Australia when she hears the sound of the door busting open, and black masked figures materialize around her. She's not sure how they've found the place of meeting, but she doesn't have time to entertain thoughts of betrayal and secrets because she's throwing jinxes and hexes in every direction, her eyes constantly scanning the confusion for a flash of green, or a flash of messy black hair, some sign that James is alright and alive and still fighting.

Everything is a blur, dust from destroyed furniture clogging the air and causing her to choke around the words of a jinx, giving her opponent a moment to aim a particularly nasty jinx at her which she barely manages to sidestep.

"Watch out, Tiger-Lily!" she hears Sirius shout from somewhere close beside her, and she jumps a little as her back collides with his. She chances a glance over her shoulder at him and he's grinning madly, his wand stabbing at the air and producing a jet of purple light that sends the Death Eater in front of him flying against the wall. She casts a spell of her own at the person in front of her and the man grunts in anger as his wand flies from his hand and is lost in the confusion. Lily allows herself a satisfied smirk and the wizard disapparates, obviously not keen on fighting without a proper weapon.

She brushes her hair from her face with the back of her wand hand while again searching for James in the mess. He's still dueling, across the room from her, his eyes wild and his neck tensed, and she throws a well-aimed hex at the woman he's up against who freezes as if cold water has been dribbled down her back and shrieks as her hands and arms begin to swell to an enormous size, her wand falling out from between her fingers. Lily darts under her bulbous arm and grabs the wand, snapping it immediately, and the witch shouts something that's indiscernible, seeing as her face has now swollen along with her limbs. There's a crack as she disappears and Lily straightens up, immediately crashing into her fiancé and kissing him with vigor. He grins at her when she pulls back, the building crashing down around them.

"Not bad, Evans," he jokes, his smile crooked and filled with pride, and she can't help but smile back. That is, until she hears a scream from the other side of the room that she recognizes as belonging to Alice Longbottom, and turns just in time to see a jet of green light hit her dearest friend Marlene in the shoulder.

Marlene turns on the spot, her eyes going hazy, and crumples to the floor. With a shriek of rage, Lily stabs her wand towards the hooded figure who cast the killing curse, and he crumples to the ground beside her friend. She can't process anything but pure, blinding rage, and before she knows it she's standing above him, her wand pointed at his throat.

"_Crucio_!" she yells, and her voice is shrill, her lips tight around the unfamiliar curse. The man on the floor writhes and screams in agony, and in the back of her mind Lily is horrified, but she can't stop, can't stop seeing Marlene's blank eyes, and she jabs her wand at the Death Eater again and again until she feels herself being pulled back by a pair of warm arms.

The man on the floor, as well as the last remaining dark figures in the room vanish instantly, leaving only a broken group of friends and the carcass of a once bright-eyed girl laying in their midst. James won't let her go, and Lily vaguely recognizes his soothing tones fighting to win over the breaking in his voice, but she can hardly hear him over the sound of her deep and raging sobs. She wants to pull Marlene's body to her chest, wants to make everything okay again, but James won't let her go, and she watches through crystalline tears as Sirius solemnly bundles the girl into his arms, his shoulders shaking violently. He lays her gently on one of the few unbroken tables in the room, pressing a cheek to her neck, and Lily can't watch anymore, so she turns her face into James's chest and lets herself cry until she has no tears left to shed.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Wow that was sad whoops. Go read something fluffy.


	7. vii, drawn

**Author's Note:** MORE MORE MORE. Here's some fluff to help soften the blow of that last one.

vii. drawn

_Lily is going through quite a phase_, he thinks as he counts slowly in his head up to the third minute of complete stillness. He's trying desperately not to move his eyes, but it's nearly impossible for him not to rake them greedily over her body as she sits, tongue poking out from between her teeth, a sketchbook propped up on her knees. Her red hair is pulled up into a messy bun atop her head, her lips cherry-red from where she's been biting them in concentration, and it takes every once of his willpower not to break his pose and press her back into the bed she's perched upon. But for the sake of her feelings, and probably his chances of getting to snog her thoroughly when she's finishes, he remains absolutely still. Her pen makes scratching noises on the paper and it's so quiet in the room that he can hear her hand as it shuffles across the page. As per her instruction, his eyes are facing frontwards, which luckily allows him to stare purposefully at her face. She glances up every few seconds, her eyes slightly narrowed as to enhance her perception of him. This time when she looks up her face contorts into a mask of disdain and she puts down her pen. She sighs heavily and he knows what she's going to say before she opens her mouth.

"You moved." Her voice is annoyed, and her tone insists that there's not an argument to be made against her statement.

"I did not!" he insists anyway, and in his eagerness to defend himself flaps his arms at his sides before realizing his mistake. His movement earns him a thoroughly exhausted sigh from his girlfriend, and he smiles at her sheepishly.

"Sorry, Lils."

"I guess I'm done, then," she mumbles grumpily, and he has to fight the urge to smile at her obvious pouting. She looks down to examine her drawing, holding it at arms length from her face and squinting unhappily. James makes a move to peek around her and see it, but she holds it protectively against her chest and glares at him.

"It's rubbish and unfinished," she complains, and he has to actually bite the inside of his cheek to contain the smile that's threatening to spread across his face. Her eyebrows knit together and her eyes narrow at him as she sticks the pen behind her ear. He knows she can tell how hard he's trying not to laugh, because she simply knows him that well, and he feels the need to apologize or beg, one or the other.

"Please, Lily? Can I see it?" His tone is as soft as he can manage, and her face immediately relaxes as she hears it. "I'm sure it's really good."

He sits next to her on the bed and she pulls the notebook closer to her chest, but when she meets his eyes and he tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, she sighs.

"Oh, alright, but don't laugh."

The drawing is good. It's not perfect, but he can tell she's getting better with every sketch - this one is the best so far. Her style is so completely Lily: soft, sweeping, and deliberate, and the rendering of his own face seems to reflect the way she sees him so perfectly that his breath is stolen for a moment before he can respond.

"It's really, really good, Doe," he assures her, and when he meets her eyes again the anxious lines in her forehead are gone. He brings her face to his and kisses her deeply on the mouth. She practically melts into his touch, her hands wrapping around him and running through the strands of his hair. They sigh into each other at the same moment and fall back onto the bed as the drawing of James falls to the floor with a thump, forgotten.

**Author's Note**: Reviews are soul food for the restless.


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